Midland. The Midland (please don’t confuse with “Midwest”) itself is the neutral zone between the North and South. But just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from there. Since it is considered a neutral, default, “non-regional” accent you could easily be from someplace without its own accent, like Florida, or a big city in the South like Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta.

Take this quiz now – it’s easy!

We’re going to start with “cot” and “caught.” When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different…

Different

Same

I find this interesting, given that I’m from Michigan. I wonder what’s different about my accent from whichever one Michigan is in (I could only get a list of other answers, without the description, so I don’t know if MI is considered Northern or North Central).

Posted by seaking on 05-12-2007 at 09:05 pm
Posted in Other with 1 Comment

Now that the weather has warmed up, I’ve had the opportunity to ride my bike to work a few times. It’s about a 9-mile trek, but most of the way I’m on the lovely Norwattuck Rail Trail, and so don’t have to worry about cars and such.

The trail goes past a number of farms as it passes through the town of Hadley. On one of my recent trips to work, I saw some cows enjoying the sun, and snapped some pics.

It’s Cowhenge!

I think this one may have been a bull:

It certainly kept well apart from the rest of the small herd, and looked more ornery. I think its head was shaped differently as well.

Other than them, I’ve seen the occasional chipmunk dashing across my path, and some small birds and squirrels. Soon, though, I hope to visit the swampy portions of the trail and take pictures of the creatures there.

Spring is the time when young Ann Arborites’ fancy turns to thoughts of terrible cinema. Those thoughts are directed at the Smithee Awards, a presentation that recognizes bad movies for their lack of accomplishment (Smithee web site here, Smithee blog here).

The show is put on by some friends of mine and I’ve attended many times in the past. I went this year, and here is my report.

So I took a trip to Michigan a few weeks ago, mainly to attend the Smithee Awards (which I’ll cover in another post), but I also got to see some family and friends.

I drove there, staying with my mother who lives in the Detroit area. Generally, the quickest way to get from home to Detroit by car is to cut through Ontario – crossing over in the Buffalo/Niagara region. Doing so had been my plan, in fact. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my passport on the trip, which I would have needed to get back into the U.S. I was in New York State by the time I realized this, and didn’t want to drive home to get it, as that would have added at least 2.5 hours to the trip. I resolved to drive through Ohio, which adds time in both directions, but less than backtracking would have.

There’s a fun little feature on the website for the movie of The Golden Compass. If you’re familiar with the book, or even if you aren’t, you may want to rate the accuracy of my result, and see what your own is.